LA Weekly

Ghettogloss pretty much understands what's going on in the subconscious depths of an urban-dwelling 21st century human when it's 100 degrees outside. It's this:

(Photo by: Magda Wosinska Model:Jenny Mollen)

Or something like the above. They also sent the best press release of the week, beating the 6 pm cut-off by mere seconds:

Saturday afternoon, you are hung over with nothing to do.
You feel like being creative but it is too hot in the house to do shit.
You think--Wouldn't it be rad to sit in the shade, hang with your homies,
drink an ice-cold Bloody Mary, and do some life drawing...

And then you think-- Wouldn't it be even radder if you had some hot models
in couture lingerie with ape masks on to model for you.

And then you think--OMG, it could even get better if Shana Dambrot (editor from Flavorpill) chose your sketch to go in the October drawing show at Ghettogloss....

The phone rings and it's your friend from Cal Arts inviting you to join the Ghettogloss girls at this thing downtown they like to call the Bronx Zoo.
and you think to yourself...........
Holy shit, I love L.A.

Details after the jump - and info about their new show opening tomorrow

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The faded mocha edifice that until last year housed CBS’s Columbia Square studios looks at first glance completely abandoned. On giant placards that once displayed pristine, smiling headshots of the KCBS news team, the local newscasters now sport spray-painted Marilyn Monroe wigs, Warhol style. On another billboard, hand-scrawled letters spelling “Life Is Beautiful” drip as if they had been painted in fresh blood.

Is it good old vandalism, or signs of life?

Click here to read the article by Shelley Leopold

Photos by Gregory Bojorquez

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Ryan Graeff, Sharktoof and Pingping at Ghettogloss

This is what's going on in Los Angeles right now: You drive to an art gallery having a show. On the way, you pass several buildings, traffic light boxes and walls covered in graffiti, paste-ups and murals that city officials or property owners do their best to obliterate as soon as they possibly can.

Once you're at the gallery, you see the same art by the same artists hanging on the walls, selling for thousands of dollars. Amazing. I"m not saying this is wrong or bad or commercialism overtaking a "purer" art form. I just think it's strange, but pretty cool too.

Shark Toof's cigarette and shark themed posters can be found across Echo Park, downtown, and Hollywood (The old LA Weekly building usually had a couple small ones on it on the bricks facing Sunset), and they've been getting colorful and more detailed even on the street. The ones currently showing at Ghettogloss though are really striking.

Sex ads on newsprint (possibly even old copies of the LA Weekly?) peak out underneath the images.

Ryan Graeff displayed several of his downtown L.A. freeway and skyline canvasses, like the two above. (More of Graeff's work after the jump).

And finally, a wall of Ping Ping's anime girl paintings, which as far as I know, don't typically end up painted on the sides of buildings or construction sites. Guilty pleasure indeed.

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Hawaiian born, LA based artist and illustrator Ekundayo had a small, but very cool showing at Suru on Saturday the 24th of May.

The store had previously featured his artwork both inside and out, so it's a natural place to hold the opening. He re-painted the outside chunk of wall with this excellent blue and purple figure.

Inside, a good dozen or so pieces hang on the wall, as well as Ekundayo-designed Suru T-shirts.

See more photos from the art opening here.

Saw a couple of other cool things on Melrose, like this gate-graffiti

Carefully spaced stickers....

Art in front of a closed gallery:

And some cool, huge MBW pieces. Check back for those, but here's a taste:

Take me to Ekundayo art!

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The Los Angeles Center for Digital Art opens a new show tonight by photographer Richard Edson. Here's the info: It's tonight from 7 to 9 p.m. at 107 West Fifth Street, LA.

Richard Edson's pictures are close-ups of toys, shot with incredible attention to lighting, background, color, context, and focal points. The show will be running until April 5, so if you don't make the opening, you've still got time to check out the work.

(All photos by Richard Edson).

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Pablo Aravena curated the new show at Scion Space in Culver City. Nomadaz brings together eight street artists from Italy and Spain, including Microbo, Eltono, Sixe,, Bo130 and more.

Above, three pieces by Dem from Italy: cat sculpture Il Cavaliere and paintings on cardboard Libero and Sara Kali.

Close up of Dem's Il Cavaliere.

Above and below: Work by 108. The giant black holes and pyramids probably lose a bit shown inside of a gallery. However, if you saw these on the side of an office building in a downtown area, they'd be impressive as hell.

108 also had several smaller framed pieces.

All photos by Mark Mauer. More after the jump.

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New works by Jersey Joe aka RIME went on display at Ghettogloss on Friday.

More photos after the jump. Check out the art in person at Ghettogloss on Glendale Blvd. in Silver Lake. The show runs until March 20.

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Seventh Letter crew member RIME, aka Jersey Joe, will be showing new work at Ghettogloss this Friday, March 7. The show will run for a couple of weeks, and there's a reception Friday, so mark your calendars. The gallery's at 2380 Glendale Blvd. near the Red Lion and across the street from Rockaway Records.

Check out the Girls, Girls Girls group show opening from Ghettogloss several weeks ago here.

Also check out Jersey Joe's website at www.JerseyJoeArt.com to check out some of his work and see an Adidas TV spot of the writer in action.

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Huge columns painted by Retna stood throughout Zero One's downtown gallery. The multi-artist show Dysmorphic Visualization Syndrome, opened Saturday night, Jan. 19th.

Part of the Con Art series by Chaz Bojorquez.

The D.V.S. show runs until the end of February. More info at Zero One's website.

Above and below, work by Axis.

Zero One is located at 746 S. Los Angeles St., downtown L.A. The D.V.S. show marks is th downtown gallery's inaugural show.

Detail from a print by Robert Williams. The Guns n Roses Appetite cover was there too, but you already know what that looks like.

Painting by Christian Rex van Minnen. More after the jump.

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The first showing of 2008 for the Carmichael Gallery featured over thirty street and outsider artists from Brazil. Shelley Leopold was at the opening Jan. 5 and got these shots of the work.

Above, Vitche Ya

PART I of the show runs until Jan. 17 at Carmichael Gallery, 1257 N. La Brea Avenue
West Hollywood.

If you missed the opening, don't worry. There's a Part II that runs from Jan. 19 - Jan. 27,
Opening reception with a live Capoeira Demonstration on Saturday, Jan. 19, 8 pm

Above and below: FLIP

Pankil

All photos by Shelley Leopold. More after the jump.

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It's hard not to love Liz McGrath. There's the art, the music she make with her band Miss Derringer, heck, the very building that she lives in is so cool it got its own cover story in LA Weekly earlier this year (with Liz on the cover naturally.)

But tonight, it's (mostly) about the art. More than 30 new pieces, dioramas and sculptures from buffaloes to armadillos. Cockroaches, bears, flies, several deer, even the seemingly freeze-dried chihuahuas that used to make up the base of her art make an appearance, in a two-headed variety.

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Ten artists made up the new Snow Angels show at ThinkSpace including new works by Stella Im Hultberg.

Above, Hultberg's “Heartbeats,” Available as a Giclee print on Hahnemuhle photo rag

SNow Angels opened opened Dec. 7th and runs through Dec. 23rd.

Above and below, paintings by Tina Anderson. Nature Of The Beast and Grey Matter

Thinkspace is located at 4210 Santa Monica Blvd. near Sunset
All photos by Mark Mauer.

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I wish I could tell you to head down to Meltdown's Sunset Blvd. location to check out the Truxtapoz show that debuted Saturday night, but it's over: One night show, which is too bad. There were a lot of cool boards and trucks, like the one below: Mildred's "Sad Bear."

Above, Josh Taylor's truck and below, Matt Dobson's painting "You Are Safe."

Above, part of Meltdown's art wall near the back of the gallery.

The event was sponsored by Grindking and also featured a lot of boards - like the ones below by Mike Kershnar - as well as shoes from Enchanted Royals and clothes from GDP. Other artists in the show included Sket-One, Jason Maloney, Justin Barry and Sean Griffin.

See many more photos of the event here.

All photos by Mark Mauer

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The Crewest Gallery downtown held their fourth annual Day of the Dead exhibit with more than 100 ceramic skulls painted, decorated, reassembled and sculpted by dozens of graffiti artists, tattoo artists and and designers. Rena Kosnett hit the opening on Saturday, November 3 and got these shots. More of Rena's photos here. The show is running thrugh December 4 at Crewest: 110 Winston St., L.A., 90013

All photos by Rena Kosnett. more after the jump.

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